1. Field of the Present Invention
The invention is related to the field of teleconferencing, video conferencing, and application sharing, and more particularly to a user friendly application and interface for standards based, multiparty conferencing.
2. History of Related Art
Conferencing applications, in which two or more parties communicate audio, video, and other information over a network such as a local area network or the internet, are becoming increasingly popular for business and consumer applications. Several characteristics of multiparty conferencing make it challenging to design an efficient and user friendly conferencing application. For example, multiparty conferencing is typically used in a networked application environment where it is not uncommon to experience delays in call setup because of heavy network traffic, latency in the sending and receiving of audio, and irregular video frame rate. Without a properly designed application, a conferencing user might assume that one or more of these symptoms is caused by improper use, a faulty connection, or some other cureable problem and attempt to interrupt or otherwise interact with the application at an inappropriate time. Moreover, users of a particular conferencing platform such as a video conferencing system typically include both knowledgeable users, who may have regularly scheduled conferencing sessions, and one-time users who are thoroughly unfamiliar with the specifics of multiparty conferencing. Unlike desktop computer interfaces, conferencing applications cannot be designed under the assumption that the user has a working familiarity with the system. Thus, a conferencing application is ideally designed with a simple, clear, and intuitive interface that permits competent use by the novice while simultaneously allowing a range of functions for more familiar and skilled operators. In addition, the growing popularity of teleconferencing, video conferencing, and application sharing has resulted in the introduction of conferencing standards designed to facilitate the development and growth of this emerging technology. Among such standards, perhaps the most widely accepted are the ITU-T Recommendation H.323, Packet-Based Multimedia Communication Systems (the H.323 standard) for audio and video content and the ITU-T Recommendation T.120, Data Protocols For Multimedia Conferencing (the T.120 standard) for data, both propagated by The International Telecommunication Union (ITU). These standards, both available from the ITU at: Sales service, International Telecommunication Union, Place des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 20 (website: www itu int), are incorporated by reference herein. The H.323 and T.120 standards rigorously mandate almost every level of call setup and management and are difficult to comprehend and use for all but the most formally initiated users. A well designed conferencing application must support and adapt the complexity inherent in the existing body of standards while providing a useable interface to enable productive use by casual users. Unfortunately, currently available conferencing applications fail to achieve one or more of theses objectives. Therefore, it is desirable to implement a teleconferencing application that addresses these issued by providing a standards based, simple, and user friendly interface that enables reliable and productive usage of a conferencing application independent of the user""s level of expertise.
The invention addresses the problems identified above with a system, a conferencing application, and a graphical user interface for supporting standards based, multiparty teleconferencing, video conferencing, and application sharing. Broadly speaking the system includes a hardware platform such as a desktop computer, a network computer, or a workstation computer. The hardware platform includes one or more processors and a system memory as well as input and output devices for user interaction. Conferencing hardware such as a microphone and speakers for audio content and a video camera for video content are interfaced to the hardware platform, typically through an I/O bus of the hardware platform. The system further includes operating system software residing at least in part in the system memory. The operating system controls execution of application programs on the hardware platform. The system further includes an application for participating in a multi-party conferencing session. The conferencing application generates a graphical user interface that includes a call control section for managing an active conferencing session, a phone control section, including video windows displaying video content of one or more parties to the conferencing session, and a mode section for facilitating access to another conferencing system.
In one embodiment, the call control section of the graphical user interface may include icons for achieving various functions such as a hang-up icon for terminating the conferencing system, a hold icon for placing a party to the conferencing session on hold, and a join icon for adding an additional party to the conferencing session. The mode section of the user interface facilitates access to another conferencing system through the use of a speed dialing menu, a directory server listing, or a call log history menu which appear in response to clicking on an appropriate mode key in the mode section. In one embodiment, each mode key in the mode section of the graphical user interface is associated with a color. In this embodiment, clicking a selected mode key changes the background color of the graphical user interface to the color associated with the selected mode key to provide immediate confirmation to the user. The phone control section may include features such as speaker volume and mute controls, microphone sensitivity and mute controls, a local video display window and a remote video display for each remote party to the conferencing application. In one embodiment, the video windows in the phone control section may be detached or removed for the corresponding video window and placed on the desktop of the system. The video windows themselves are preferably scaleable by dragging the side of a video window.